Without Words
by alwaysfor3v3r
Summary: Nico struggles to tell Will what he needs to say, but love speaks without words. When Will tries, with only a Portuguese-English dictionary and Nico's Italian, to get to know the new demigod, it doesn't take much translation for Nico to see that Will and Paolo have great affinity in spite of the language barrier, and that it's time for Nico to be honest about how much he loves Will


_The romance is largely at the end, but I do hope you read it all to see how it develops :) I'd also like to warn that like our precious Will and Nico, I did not have a Portuguese speaker handy (or an Italian one, I might add), so I've heavily relied on Google Translate, which I hope is not obvious._

* * *

 **Without Words**

Paolo smiled broadly at Will and said in his smooth voice, "Eu entendo inglês."

Will brightened. "Really? That's great!" He grinned. "You'll have to be patient with us though, I only know some grade-school Spanish and Nico knows Italian, but we don't know any Portuguese." He sighed apologetically, "I wish we weren't having tech problems, or I'd just pull up online translation services."

"¿Você gostaria de aprender?" Paolo seemed only to be addressing Will, as Nico had remained quiet through their introductions.

"Would I like to learn?" Will guessed.

Paolo nodded and said, "Eu poderia ensinar-lhe muitas coisas," with a suggestive eyebrow raise.

Will missed it, busy flipping through the dictionary for _ensinar_ , but it did not escape Nico who frowned and translated for Will, "I think he said _I can teach you many things_."

"Well there's a lot of things I'd like to know." Will looked up from the dictionary. "For now let's just try and get to know each other better." Paolo's green eyes sparkled and Nico scowled, fairly certain that Paolo was picking the wrong meaning from Will's words. "Chiron showed you the orientation film? Great, let's try and place you here. It would help if you could tell us what you know about your parents."

Paolo launched into an animated monologue. Will and Nico exchanged glances of confusion, each catching only a few phrases here and there that they could recognize. Paolo looked pleased with himself for having given such a detailed response and looked at them brightly. All Nico gleaned was something about a soccer player and young beauty.

Will nodded encouragingly, "Okay, so your dad was a great soccer player and you don't know much about your mom except that she was beautiful and they met when they were young?"

Paolo smiled. "Sim, buito bom. Você é inteligente e atraente." _Yes, very good. You are smart and..._

"Atraente..." Will flipped through the _a_ section. "Oh." _Attractive_. "Uh, thank you, I wish I were only smart enough to learn your language faster." He side-stepped the rest of that comment, though Nico wished he didn't look pleased by the compliment. He changed the subject. "So how did you find your way all the way from Brazil to Camp Half-Blood by yourself?" Will sounded impressed.

Paolo gestured with his hands as he spoke, as if he were playing charades, and since he talked so fast that they couldn't understand, it was just as well. He sat a little straighter, sticking his chest out proudly at the end of his speech. They gleaned from this that he had just narrated his courageous vanquishing of several terrifying creatures and emerged unscathed except for a few fractured ribs – here he happily took off his shirt, revealing abs like a male model, to show a painful looking black and purple bruise across his left side.

Will dropped the dictionary. "You should have told us that first! Does it hurt? I'm a healer, I can fix that."

Paolo waved his hand grandly in a dismissive gesture and said with an air of stoic bravado, "Não se preocupe, é apenas um aborrecimento menor. Eu sou muito forte, você vê." Nico gathered something like: _No, don't worry, it's just a minor annoyance. I'm very strong, you see_ , filling in the words he didn't know with the arrogance he ascribed to Paolo.

"Are you sure?" Will gently touched his fingertips to the edge of the bruise to diagnose the severity of his injury, looking concerned. Paolo breathed in sharply and shivered slightly. "Sorry." Will said apologetically, as if Paolo had reacted in pain – though it was obvious as Nico had watched his face that this was far from the truth. Will withdrew his hand quickly as he spoke. "You should put some ice on it to help with the pain and swelling."

Paolo smiled and took Will's hand, running his fingertips over Will's. "Nenhuma dor."

Will extricated his hand and reached for the dictionary. Nico said impatiently, "He says he's fine."

"Everyone says that." Will said evenly, poking Nico's side in teasing accusation.

Nico smiled up at Will, then tilted his body and leaned into Will's shoulder. He didn't usually like physical contact and certainly not in public, but he didn't mind with Will and and he felt it necessary to temper Paolo's self-assuredness. Will smiled at Nico, his face brightening – Nico didn't usually show much outright affection. He put his arm around Nico and rested it on Nico's shoulder, his fingers playing with his Camp necklace. Nico's skin tingled pleasantly each time his fingertips grazed his neck.

"So let's try and figure out which goddess is your mom." Will looked at Paolo thoughtfully. "What are your strengths and interests?"

Paolo smiled and flexed, showing off the impressive muscles in his arms. "Eu sou muito forte."

"Yes, we can see you're very strong." Nico snapped with annoyance. He'd always been small and thin, which was annoying enough in itself, but made worse in that he seemed to always be seen with tall and athletic types like Jason and Will.

Paolo shrugged and reeled off a few more sentences. From what Nico gathered he was very good at sports, cooking, and dancing, but he wasn't really listening to him anymore, he was just annoyed with Paolo for so boldly flirting with Will. If he was being honest, it wasn't quite fair of him to be envious. Nico wasn't nearly as open or affectionate to Will as he was to Nico – Piper told him it was because they had different love languages (whatever that meant) – and it was petulant of him to be upset that someone else could reciprocate better.

"Wait," Will was saying, "Dezoito, that means you're eighteen?" Will looked surprised. Paolo nodded. He had a boyish face only looked fourteen, maybe fifteen. "And you recover quickly from injury?"

Paolo enthusiastically affirmed by pulling up his shirt again – Nico almost rolled his eyes with annoyance at the obvious showing off – and sure enough, the bruise on his side was fading.

"Interesting." Will said. Nico hoped Will wasn't interest _ed_.

"Anything else you want to tell us about – strange occurrences and what not?" Nico was eager to wrap up the interview.

Paolo tapped a finger to his lips thoughtfully – Nico suspected this was an attempt to draw Will's eye to his lips, but Will was holding polite eye contact – and told a long story, of which Nico only caught _dance_ and _demon_ and which ended with Paolo looking expectantly at both of them for a response.

Will flipped through the dictionary without stopping at any particular page. "Oh that's nice. We'll show you around."

* * *

As expected, Nico did not enjoy their tour. He had hoped it would involve fewer attempts at translation and flirtation, but no such luck. When they passed the arts and crafts studio Paolo commented that Will had the handsome features of classical sculptures. When Will pointed out the West Hills as the sun was setting, Paolo proclaimed it was very romantic and wanted them to sit and watch the sunset, then engaged with Will in an animated conversation about the symbolism of the sun and stars in ballads which Nico hardly understood even in English. It seemed that in spite of the language barrier Will and Paolo understood each other fairly well. When they passed the amphitheater Paolo asked if Will danced and talked a lot about passion and trust, ending with something like, _If you lead I will follow._

Paolo persistently engaged Will in conversation and asked Will lots of questions. This annoyed Nico; he hated being interrogated and he did not appreciate Paolo prying at Will, though he answered them all good-naturedly and seemed to enjoy conversing with Paolo. At first Paolo's questions were basic, like how Will liked living at Camp, leading to small talk; then moderately intrusive, like whether he had a girlfriend, resulting in them sharing funny anecdotes; and then surprisingly deep and personal, so that Nico actually found he learned a lot about Will that he had taken for granted.

"What's the hardest part about being a demigod?" Will repeated Paolo's question to verify that he understood it.

Paolo nodded solemnly.

Will stared thoughtfully at the hearth in the center of the green for a moment, his blue eyes wistful. "That it's so hard to hold onto what you love in this life."

"¿O?" Paolo's dark eyebrows knit together.

"I shouldn't say that." Will laughed uneasily. "You've only just gotten here."

Paolo touched his arm. "¿Mas por que você diz isso?" He fixed Will's gaze with his brilliant green eyes. _But why do you say that?_

"I..." Will hesitated. "Well, to start I haven't seen my mom in person in six years. I'm not a good enough fighter to protect her and all the people she needs in her life when I'm with her, so it's better for her if I stay here. I had two older brothers that looked after me and who taught me really everything I know about how to be in this world. They both died in battle, and I felt really lost for a long time. Neither of them should have died. Lee was seventeen and he had a scholarship to Stanford. Michael was fourteen, younger than I am now."

Nico put his hand on Will's shoulder. He'd never asked Will about his mother or his brothers before; he didn't like people prying into his pain so he never asked about anyone else's.

Paolo leaned closer to Will and said softly, "¿O que você faz para se lembrar a si mesmo?"

Will's eyebrows knit together in thought. "What do I do in order to...?" He looked at Nico for assistance, but the line didn't make much sense in any Italian cognates.

Paolo pushed a soft curl of blond hair from Will's face and gently tapped his finger to his temple, "Lembrar."

"To think?" Paolo shook his head. He brushed his fingers along Will's forehead, then closed his eyes and opened them as if in epiphany. "To realize? To remember?"

Paolo nodded. Then his hand fell lightly across Will's neck and collarbone, then pressed against his chest. He tapped his sternum. "Si mesmo."

Will nodded and leaned back just slightly, his shoulder pressing against Nico's. "Myself. What do I do to remember myself?"

Paolo spread his hands and nodded.

Will breathed in slowly. "Try to love better and harder the people that I still have left so I can do right by the people I've lost." He squeezed Nico's hand and gave him a small smile.

Nico wondered if maybe he had it all wrong; that he should ask to show that he cared.

They walked by all the cabins and Will gave short descriptions of the different gods and goddesses they represented. When Will mentioned that his father was Apollo, Paolo commented that he would have thought him a child of Aphrodite, but that Will did seem to radiate beside others. Nico took this to mean that Paolo didn't think much of him, as was typical. They stopped in front of the Hermes Cabin and Will explained that Paolo would temporarily stay here until he was claimed, which would probably be soon, since he was older than thirteen. Paolo turned to Will.

"¿Posso pedir-lhe mais uma pergunta?" _Can I ask you one more question?_

"Sure."

"¿O que lhe dá esperança?"

Will thought long and hard about this last question. _What gives you hope?_

"I don't always know." Will finally admitted. "Sometimes I really doubt we'll ever make it out of this life whole, or if we'll ever make it out of this life at all. I just try and believe in what is right, believe in the people I love, and believe that there will be a tomorrow, because if I stop believing then I won't make it past today."

Will's honesty surprised Nico. He had only ever known pain to be darkness and death and misery, had never thought it might be found in Will's smiles and gentle calmness and hope.

Paolo smiled at Will and kissed him on the cheek twice. He whispered gently into his ear, "Então, eu também acredito no amanhã como eu acredito em você."

Will stepped back, looking puzzled, his ears red.

 _So I will also believe in tomorrow, as I believe in you._

The Hermes cabin door opened and Alice and Julia peeked out. "Hi, are you new?" Julia asked.

"Paolo, this is Julia and Alice. He only speaks Portuguese. It was nice meeting you Paolo," Nico felt much easier throwing these words out as he was leaving, "We'll see you around." He tugged at Will's hand and pulled him away, into his own cabin.

* * *

Nico sat dejectedly on his bed and stared angrily at the black window across from him. Will sat beside him. "Did you understand the last thing Paolo said?"

"No." Nico said truthfully. He didn't know any of the important words in the line, but he did not mistake the affection and tenderness in Paolo's response.

Will smiled and playfully shoved Nico's shoulder with his. "You don't like him?"

"I didn't say that." Nico said flatly.

"You didn't have to." Will replied lightly.

Nico looked down and picked at a frayed thread on the knee of his black jeans. He could have easily gone on the defensive and started a fight with Will, but he didn't want to. Will wasn't Percy; Nico didn't want to push him away. He didn't deserve what he had with Will, let alone to be jealous of someone who could understand and give back to him so easily. The stubborn part of him wanted to protest that it wasn't fair to expect these things from him – he didn't know how to face his own feelings, let alone offer them for anyone else; his instinct was to repress any romantic feeling, rather than to share them; he had long since forgotten what it meant to be loved, he didn't know how to do it correctly.

"Nico," Will said softly. When Nico didn't respond Will put his hand over Nico's to stop him from pulling apart his jeans. "What's wrong?"

Nico swallowed hard. "Do you wish I was different?"

"No," Will looked at him earnestly, "Why would I wish that?"

"Because I don't know how to love you back."

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could think; they were petty and they admitted more than he wanted – they had not gotten to _I love you_ yet; for all he knew they were far from it and would now never be there. Nico flinched and recoiled, pulling himself into the corner of the bed and hiding his face. He couldn't bear to see Will leave.

Will moved to his side and gathered him in his arms. He leaned down to fix his deep blue eyes on Nico's dark and broken eyes. "I know you do." He said gently. "I know that it's hard, it hurts, after all that you've been through. I know how much it means that you're trying for us, that you trust me enough to tell me when you're hurting, that you don't turn away when I reach for you. We all break differently and we love differently, and we're going to be okay."

Nico pressed his face into Will's chest and wrapped his arms around himself to hold himself together. He wanted to tell Will how much he loved him and needed him, but he didn't have the words or the voice to speak. He couldn't find the pieces of himself he now needed; they had long since been lost.

At last, Nico looked up at Will and murmured, "Se io ti amo, potrei perdere te, e non posso sopportare il pensiero di perderti."

Will's eyes focused, slowly translating. "If I love you, I might lose you… and…" He tilted his head. "I don't know the rest."

Nico breathed shakily. He reached and tentatively touched Will's face. He spoke in a bare whisper, "And I cannot bear the thought of losing you."

Will leaned close so that their bodies almost collapsed into one; his heartbeat echoed into Nico's chest, his breath pulled the air from Nico's lungs. He could feel the movement of Will's lips as he whispered back, "Then don't let me go. Just hold on and you'll never lose me."

Nico couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. He did the only thing that didn't require words. He tilted his head and gently touched his lips to Will's and it was as if he'd never known the depths of his soul until he felt the love he'd so long forgotten flood into him and spill over his pain as he pulled away and saw himself reflected in Will's clear sky blue eyes.

This, he knew, he would never lose.

* * *

 _So Will Solace is my new favorite character and even though I never thought I'd like any couple more than Tratie, I'm taken by Solangelo. I just love how perfect Will is (even his name, which is totally symbolic) and how much Nico has changed being with him. I've been meaning to write them for a long time and this is just a start. I really liked exploring the idea of language and communication, the idea that love speaks without words._

 _Let me know what you think! It's just a oneshot so this is your only chance :)_


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